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BBC: “From 25 May, European laws dictate that ‘explicit consent’ must be gathered from web users who are being tracked via text files called ‘cookies’. … The changes are demanded by the European e-Privacy directive which comes into force in the UK in late May. – The section of the directive dealing with cookies was drawn up in an attempt to protect privacy and, in particular, limit how much use could be made of behavioural advertising. – This form of marketing involves people being tracked across websites, with their behaviour used to create a profile that dictates the type of adverts they see. … The exact steps that businesses have to go through to comply with the law and gain consent from customers and users are being drawn up by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS).”

TC: “As if European startups weren’t already at a notional disadvantage in addressing smaller markets, having access to less venture capital and being geographically spread out, a new EU-wide law proposes to hobble its innovation companies by slapping big privacy warning signs all over their sites. … Although businesses are being urged to work out how they gain ‘consent’ from users, this is bound to cause consternation. … Nick Halstead, CEO of Tweetmeme and new startup DataSift told me: ‘It clearly makes UK companies less competitive because sites we build will need to be plastered with warnings – and our competitors will not.‘

GigaOM: “It’s not a law. The EU is saying member states should enact their own legislation in this area to harmonize with each other, but each country gets to apply it in its own way. Britain’s government will have no impact on the French; the Spanish solution may be very different from the Italian, and so forth. – It doesn’t make opt-in compulsory yet. Because of the system, directives take a long time to become enforceable laws. So while the directive might come into force on May 25, it’s not going to be resulting in court cases for years. – It doesn’t ban cookies. It just asks that those sites which use cookies to track user behavior off site – usually to serve targeted ads – tell users that they’re doing so. Login cookies and shopping carts would be exempt. It’s not aimed at making businesses less competitive. It’s aimed at making them more transparent.”

TNW: “Even if it doesn’t drive startups or their users elsewhere, it’s still sure to be annoying. I’ve had my current computer for three months and I already have 5000 cookies stored on it. Even if only a fraction of those are from European sites, the idea of approving hundreds of ‘explicit permissions’ per month is daunting.”

pC: “In any case, the member countries of the European Union have substantial leeway in how they implement the rule and work it into their national legal systems. Member countries have until May 25 to do that, but it’s not unusual for them to be late. – While U.S. regulators have also begun considering beefing-up online privacy, including various ‘Do Not Track’ measures, no politician stateside has gone as far as the UK Information Commissioner went by suggesting that an explicit opt-in for standard HTTP cookies should be required.”

The EU cookie controversy has been an issue ever since e-Privacy Directive was amended in November 2009. At the cippguide.org, we take a look at privacy issues worldwide. We also help prepare candidates for the CIPP certification. Check out our blog post that discusses the EU e-Privacy Directive and the development of the cookie problem.